


and i dont know what cupid is waiting for

by sweepcheck (basketweaver)



Category: Hockey RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe - Coffee Shops & Cafés, Alternate Universe - College/University, Dallas Stars, M/M, Pining
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-07-07
Updated: 2016-07-07
Packaged: 2018-07-22 00:54:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,309
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7412080
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/basketweaver/pseuds/sweepcheck
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The rain outside only gets heavier throughout the night. He hears it patter on his window as he lies in bed. He can hardly sleep, it’s like he can feel raindrops all over his skin. It’s like taps of fingertips ghosting over his arms. It’s the stream of thoughts in his brain manifesting as prickling sensations on his skin, and he can’t switch it off. His mind’s eye is the monochrome static of a broken TV, and the rain outside is the white noise.<br/>Three guesses what he’s thinking about.</p><p>or: jamie and tyler meet at a party. they dont exchange names. jamie works at a coffee shop. tyler buys coffee, but tyler doesn't remember the party.</p>
            </blockquote>





	and i dont know what cupid is waiting for

**Author's Note:**

> title from Need Somebody To Love by Ady Suleiman. 
> 
> unbeta'd.
> 
> i'm not completely sure what this is. enjoy?

How Jamie manages to get roped in to going to this dumb party is beyond him. All he’s doing is sitting in his dorm room, studying (or trying to, at the very least). And suddenly, a certain Jason Demers knocks on his door and busts in the room, all in quick succession.

“How do you feel about getting wasted tonight?”

“Jase, dude, honestly, I-”     

“Pick you up around ten, then,”

“Dude-”

And then he’s gone. Now there’s an invite that Jamie doesn’t want to accept. But maybe he considers it. Briefly.

 

 

“I’ll see you at the party tonight, Chubbs,”

“What's with you guys entering my room uninvited?”

“Me and Daddy are picking you up at ten, bud,”

Jamie can only sigh in response because what’s the point in trying anymore? He spins in his little college-issued office chair and looks right at his brother. He hopes his eyes can do all the talking on his behalf.

“When was the last time you went out? For real.”

“Jordie.”

“How many weeks?” he pauses, though it was obvious he wasn’t expecting an answer, “maybe months is more appropriate.”

“School’s really been taking it out of me.”

“Dude, you can use that line on mum, but it’s not gonna work on me.”

Jamie turns back and looks at his textbook, and the pathetic notes he’s been scribbling for the past- he looks at his phone- forty minutes. The blue ink of his scratchy handwriting has bled messily through the paper. Stupid pen.

“How can you call your own boyfriend _Daddy_?” He says as he spins around, but Jordie is already halfway out of the room.

“Ten o’clock, Jamie! And consider a shower, maybe.”

There’s a slam of the door behind him. Jamie sniffs his armpits. Maybe he could fit a visit to the communal showers in to his schedule, even though he was really busy. With school and everything. He opens the curtains a little wider, letting the sun in. He’s been feeling tired lately and he’s attributing it solely to a (self-diagnosed) vitamin D deficiency.

 

 

He’s gelled his hair up a bit. He might have gone a little overboard with the product but it looks better that way, no matter how much the guys chirp him for it. And his brother’s shower tip might not have gone totally amiss, because he was a little gross before. He’s put a new t-shirt on too, which is a nice cobalt colour. He bought it a while ago, actually, but he hasn’t worn it until now. It feels a little tighter than when he bought it, so the working out seems to have paid off. He looks in the mirror and hopes to God he doesn’t look too ridiculous. It’s ten past ten when he hears heavy, recognisable feet tramping down the hall. Obviously his ride is here.

 

 

The journey to the party is a little longer than expected.

“Who’s hosting this thing anyway?” Jamie asks from the backseat of the Renault. It’s a small car, in an odd shade of purple, that he was almost embarrassed to be seen stepping into. Jordie had needed to step out and fold the front seat forward just so Jamie could get in.

He doesn’t get a reply (rude), but when he starts seeing those big houses on either side of the road, it’s pretty obvious it’ll be at a frat house. He’s savouring the car ride because he knows that place is gonna be total Bedlam. He can picture it already.

 

 

His imagination really doesn’t do the place justice. There’s ridiculous memorabilia adorning the walls (with a few signs of Bruins patronage that Jamie just can’t fully forgive. That’s what he gets for studying in Boston, he supposes) and there’s a questionable stickiness to the wooden floors, however the carpets don’t strike Jamie as being that much safer. The lights are mostly on around the house, but one corner of the (what might once have been considered tasteful) open-plan, living-kitchen-dining area has a shitty little multi-coloured disco lamp set on the table. Jamie can’t penalise them for trying.

Everyone is yelling and Jordie and Jason disappeared with nothing more than a pat on the back and a ‘go get ’em, tiger’. So Jamie decides to get a drink, and then look for some place good to occupy, with fewer people.

Getting to the kitchen is a trip in itself, made perilous by the game of beer pong that’s taken over the whole room. A stumbling frat boy lines up a ping-pong ball that barely misses Jamie as he tries to get by inconspicuously.

He finds places that he eventually has to move from when they become too full. And he’s not a total social failure, no matter how much some people (Jordie and Jason) tease him. He does talk to people. It’s hard at first, but it gets easier the more he drinks. It’s a lot of ‘what’s your major’ and ‘where are you from’, but he tries not to stick around too long for it to become too painfully awkward. There was a level of social ineptness that used to plague every conversation he had with anybody, but he’s not experienced that at all tonight. So he’s been improving, generally.

It’s been maybe two hours before he gets so bored that he has to leave the house, which he considers a personal achievement. He looks for some kind of quiet exit, and comes across a door to a tiny balcony through a (surprisingly) vacant bedroom. That door took a lot of courage to open.

The fresh air doesn’t come fast enough. Jamie shuts the door behind him and leans on the edge of the balcony. He can hear the music faintly from inside the house, and he feels it too, in his chest. And, fuck, if it doesn’t suck.

The garden is big, empty. There’s a nice patio and a few white plastic lawn chairs strewn haphazardly around a table. One of them has been tipped over onto its side. The grass goes out quite far and there are tall fences on the left and right side. He thinks he can make out a Frisbee in the uncut grass.

Then he hears rustling from somewhere beneath him. Grunting and rustling. On the left side of the garden, out of a pile of leaves, a figure is crawling quite drunkenly. He’s miraculously still holding on to a can of beer. And still grunting, struggling to stand up.

“Can a guy-” he starts loudly, “can a guy pass out without being thrown in- in the backyard?”

He manages to stand up, having spilt some (a lot) of his beer in the process, and he wipes himself down.

“Every time…” he mumbles, looking down at his probably once-white t-shirt, which is now generously covered in a good mix of dirt and what is most likely a generous amount of spilled alcohol. His arms are covered in dark tattoos and he must be some kind of athlete because you don’t get muscles like that by sitting on your ass all day.

And Jamie isn’t sure if being cast out to the yard really impacted this guy’s mood at all, because now he’s humming something (Justin Bieber?) really out of tune and inspecting what’s left of his drink. He takes a sip and impartially shrugs before sipping some more.

Jamie can’t help but laugh a little at that.

“Hey! Is there someone up there?” the guy yells, “how long you been there? You know long I’ve been outside for?” And yeah, with that accent, he can’t not be Canadian. He’s rubbing his temples now, and his eyes are screwed shut.

“No clue, bud,” Jamie says, maybe a beat too late.

“Dude, I swear! This, it happens to me so much. I’m so, you know. Like, I’m tired of it. I don’t mean to- to pass out. I just suck at beer pong.”

And yeah, this was the guy Jamie saw playing beer pong earlier, for sure.

“I think I saw you play, man. You were having a tough time out there, eh?”

The guy takes a second before he answers, distracted.

“This. Now, this is some real Romeo and Juliet bullshit,” he declares.

Jamie can’t even come up with an answer before the guy is down on his knees and, oh boy, he’s yelling now.

“But, soft! What light through yonder window breaks? It is the east, and- uh, hey, dude, what’s your name?”

“Uh. Jamie,” he replies, startled.

“And _Jamie_ is the sun,” he exclaims, and Jamie isn’t completely sure if he saw the guy wink at him.

“Arise, fair sun, and kill the jeal- the envious moon,” the guy twists and points at the moon, “who is already sick and pale with grief, that thou her… dude art far more fair than she.” He gets the last word out in concordance with a burp.

And Jamie doesn’t have a response to this one. The bizarre juxtaposition of the appearance of this somewhat dirty, total hard-core bro and the centuries-old verse that comes out of his mouth leaves Jamie completely speechless. So he stands there, looking down at this guy, who’s on his knees looking right back up at him.

“This isn’t great for my knees,” he groans, standing up, “I hope my ride didn’t leave already.” Jamie is almost certain the guy isn’t talking to him anymore. He seemed to have handled the whole situation kinda nonchalantly. Maybe he quotes Shakespeare to lots of guys.

So he’s gone. The frat-boy Romeo disappears into the house with a click of the latch. And if that wasn’t the weirdest moment of Jamie’s life, then. Well.

Then.

 

 

Jamie had tried to find Romeo in the house, but he was nowhere to be found. He left the house fruitless; all he got out of those fifteen minutes of searching was a curiously red coloured drink spilled on him. It smelled like strawberries, and after that he just felt so frustrated and hopeless that he decided to take a taxi (which he could barely afford) home, because it was late and he had no idea how to get home from there. When he wakes up in his bed the next morning he feels a twinge of regret in his stomach and also a very light headache.

His roommate is gone. Thank God. He brushes his teeth in the sink in their room, and gives himself a good stare in the mirror. His hair looks terrible. All he’s wearing is a pair of crimson boxer shorts. He has sleep in his eyes and marks like tiger stripes on his skin from the duvet.

He checks his phone. A couple of messages from Jason, and some girl asking what she missed last lecture. That was for later, he decides. Now is time for food. He gets dressed, covering his horrific hair with a discreet beanie, and goes to treat himself to a Saturday brunch. And he doesn’t think about Romeo. Not at all.

 

 

Jason texts him again, asking him if he wants to come over and watch TV with him and Jordie. Jamie decides to pay them a visit, even though he hates third-wheeling. They watch a hockey game from the night before, even though Jamie saw the results in his notifications already. And Jamie opens a can of beer as soon as he gets there, even though it’s barely one o'clock.

“What happened to you two last night?” Jamie asks.

“Met a guy.” Jordie says, his eyes still focused on the screen.

And, fuck, if that means they had a threesome, Jamie totally didn’t need to know and now he regrets asking anything at all. He can’t help but make a face. He digs his hand into his bowl of popcorn. Greasy.

“Yeah, what a nice dude. Anyway, what about you? You talk to anybody?” Jason asks. He’s actually _looking_ at Jamie, so maybe they’ll have a real conversation in the midst of the game that Jordie is fully engrossed in.

“Um. Yeah. There was this one cute girl from some sorority close by. And some guy quoted Shakespeare to me,” he discloses.

“He what?” Jordie’s head snaps to look at Jamie.

“Romeo and Juliet. I was on a balcony.”

“Oh, of course.”

“Makes sense.”

“Well,” Jamie starts, but he's interrupted by the Rangers scoring, and the three of them all groan and take a disheartened drink in unison.

“How come this stuff always happens to you?” Jason questions, his attention back to Jamie. One of his hands is on the back of Jordie’s neck, playing with hair there.

“It does not!”

But when he thinks about it he does seem to attract weird drunks. There was the girl who proposed adopting the house cat with him (and pestered him about it for an hour), the guy who gave him a bowl of cereal (which Jamie was too afraid to eat), and then there was the couple that used him as a stand-in therapist when he accidentally walked in on them arguing while he was looking for a bathroom (he sat with them for a good half hour). Maybe they flocked to him. Like the pied piper, but for drunk people.

“Dude, it always happens to you,” Jason replies, “You’re some sort of weirdo magnet."

"Anyway, you totally should have hooked up with that guy,” Jordie adds.

“For sure,” Jason agrees.

Jason leans over Jordie’s lap to pat Jamie’s knee softly, and Jamie does not like the devious look on his face one bit, “Let’s find this guy. Then you can get married and have babies and everything. He can take you off our hands.”

“Since when am I a burden?” Jamie asks, because if he remembers correctly they were the ones who invited him here.

“You should have a June wedding. Up in BC,” Jordie states, eyes still fixed on the TV.

“What did he look like?” Jason asks. He’s still leaning over Jordie, reminding Jamie of a big (annoying) puppy.

“Brown hair, brown eyes too probably,”

“You really narrowed it down there, bud,” Jordie interjects.

“I wasn’t done,” Jamie grumbles with a punch to his brother’s arm, “and he had a bunch of tattoos. Sleeves. He looked pretty fratty.”

“Do you know how many tattooed frat-boy douchebags there are in Boston?” Jordie asks. He hasn’t looked away from the screen the whole time.

Jason continues, “Anything else?”

“Uh. He was Canadian, I’m pretty sure.”

“Good on you,” Jason muses, “I’m betting he was an English major. Who else quotes Shakespeare? Hey, Jordie?” he lightly tugs at Jordie’s beard.

“Ow,” Jordie flinches, “What?”

“You know anyone who quotes Shakespeare?”

“Literally everybody I know, dude, I’m a fucking English major,” Jordie says gruffly.

Jamie wracks his brain for other notable features about Romeo. How tall was he? What was he wearing? Didn’t he have a beard?

“He had a beard.”

“A Jordie-beard, or what? We need a point of reference here, Jamie,”

“I don’t know. Like. Justin Timberlake in Inside Llewyn Davis. Maybe not so much of a neck-beard though.”

“You’ve seen Inside Llewyn Davis?” Jordie scoffs. Jamie chooses to pointedly ignore this comment because maybe he had seen it, and maybe he didn’t enjoy it all that much but he had liked it when Justin Timberlake sang.

“Oh, ok, so maybe Adam Driver in Inside Llewyn Davis, except more than a goatee?” Jason suggests.

“I mean. I guess.” Jamie frowns. Jason has obviously already decided what he was looking for, and Jamie was left to wonder how Jason had such a good memory of celebrity beards.

“Well, we’ve got ourselves quite the wanted poster then, eh, boys?”

The Rangers score again.

 

 

When Jamie gets back home, he may or may not Google the script of Romeo and Juliet. And he may or may not find the scene he remembers being passionately recited to him, and he may or may not read and reread it a stupid number of times. He totally doesn’t get most of it but he thinks the compliments Romeo gave Juliet were nice. And if he falls asleep watching Leonardo di Caprio as Romeo that night, that doesn’t mean anything.

 

 

***

 

 

Jamie walks into the lecture hall the next day, and he realises he forgot to text that girl back about what she missed. She probably got notes off someone else anyway. But that doesn’t seem to stop her shooting him a dirty look or two.

He takes his notes. He has to sheepishly ask to borrow a highlighter from the person next to him though. He’s been a bit absent-minded lately. The highlighter a pretty pinkish colour that doesn’t fit with the new note-taking system he has been trying to implement. That probably wouldn’t have worked out anyway, so. He might as well give up on his bullet journal too.

 

 

After that he’s got to go to work, which he’s totally not in the mood for. He wasn’t particularly cut out to be a barista. He kind of hates being on his feet for so long, but the little café he works in is pretty cosy and there aren’t really that many customers most of the time. And he’s getting paid, which he really can’t complain about. Being forced to talk to real-life, actual people was slightly terrible at first, but it’s all been contributing of his self-improvement goals. Unfortunately they’re not as concrete as things like fitness goals; things he could post on Instagram and accompany with a hashtag (just had a conversation with a stranger and didn’t fuck it up!! #goals #naturalconversationalist ‘ok hand emoji’, ‘fire emoji’).

He thinks he is actually making friends with his coworkers too, which is good. There’s a French guy called Antoine that confuses the customers with his accent, and an older guy called Johnny who is just, objectively, the best-looking man Jamie has ever seen. And the manager, Julie, is maybe the nicest person he has ever met. She asks him a lot about how he’s doing and how school is going, and she shows him a lot of pictures of her cats. He likes her a lot.

The café is kind of cute in itself, and Jamie prefers it much more than he would do working in a Starbucks or something. It has big windows and deep purple armchairs and brown leather couches. The tables are low and there’s a bunch of local art all over the walls, a lot of it made by students of the area. It smells sweet from the pastries and bitter from the coffee.

He’s making coffees and serving up snacks and then suddenly he just really wants to be invisible for a second because if that’s not Romeo walking in through that door and if he’s not walking to the counter right this second and

“Hello, what can I get you?”

“Hi, can I get a medium vanilla latte, to go? Do you guys do those? ,” he says, his voice is different sober, when he’s not shouting. Is this really him? He’s prettier than Jamie remembers and this is exactly what he didn’t need, and desperately wanted, all at once.

“Um. Sure,” Jamie smiles as normally as he can, and, yeah, he’s made one of those before (albeit rarely). Part of him wants to draw this out for as long as possible, because this could be his last chance to ever interact with Romeo again. He’s ruling out doing stupid things like fucking up his order or messing up the cash register when a Bad Idea materializes in his brain. Every piece of advice (good or bad) that Jordie has ever given him, every ‘go get ’em, tiger’, is racing through his mind. The odds of this working out are so bad and he can feel his cheeks going rosy. He hopes he’s not sweating. He’s gonna go with it.

While the machine works, Jamie gets a paper cup and finds a pen. It’s the pink highlighter in his pocket, the one it turns out he accidentally stole from that girl earlier. Fuck it, he writes his name and phone number on it in an ugly, rushed scrawl. He still has a couple of seconds to change his mind but no, isn't he on a mission of self-improvement? This is the first step. Or maybe he skipped a bunch of steps and now he’s all the way at step 10 and making a big mistake.

Well, now he’s pouring the damned thing and what the fuck. Do people really do this? Outside of movies? He puts the cup on the counter and now he _regrets_ and fuck fuck fuck-

“Can I get you anything else?”

“No, thanks,” Romeo says, with a small smile. His facial hair is worse than Jamie remembered, but his eyes are pretty up close like this. He couldn’t see them like this the other night. He couldn’t see the colour, or the shape of them, or his eyelashes. He couldn’t see his cheekbones or the crinkles in his cheeks when he smiled.

“Alright, that’s um. Three fifty,” Jamie says. Romeo fishes five dollars out of the pocket of his jeans and Jamie marvels at how beads of rain from outside are resting on his hair and the shoulders of his jacket, like dew drops on blades of grass or on the tops of leaves. He looks significantly less fratty today, which Jamie appreciates. It’s also a little confusing and contradictory.

And then he’s gone, faster than he came in. This is the worst thing ever, and Jamie is an idiot. What if Romeo doesn’t even see the writing on the cup? What if he throws it away without so much as a second thought, and Jamie never sees him again?

What if he does see it? What if he sees it and he laughs at the dumb guy at the coffee shop who wrote his phone number on his vanilla latte? What would be worse? Jamie feels like his entire insides are collapsing. He has to text Jason. Immediately.

And Julie won’t mind, right? This is technically an emergency, and the place is empty. He appreciates for a second how nice his boss is.

           

_Jamie: are u free?? need to talk!!!!_

_Jason: sure_

_Jamie: can i call u?_

_Jason: sure_

            Jason always had a way with words. Jamie clicks call as quickly as he can and finds an adequate armchair that’s tucked into the corner of the café to hide away in. This is completely not what he should be doing at work. He slumps into the chair, as low as possible, when Jason picks up.

            “Hey dude, what’s up?”

            “I did something kinda dumb, I think,” Jamie says softly.

            “Love it. Elaborate.” Jason says over some crackly background noise, he’s obviously in a crowded place somewhere.

            “Alright… Well, I’m at work, right? And I’m having a pretty normal day, you know? And then. You remember Romeo?”

            “Of course, Jamie, you idiot.”

            “Well, _Romeo_ walks into the café today.”

            “Dude! Did you get his number?”

            “No? Not exactly.”

            “Oh, so you gave him yours, then.”

            “Kind of.”

            “What does ‘kind of’ mean?”

            “Man, this is so dumb," Jamie sighs, "When he ordered his coffee… I wrote my number on the cup. And I still don’t even know his name. Then he left. I’m such an idiot. That was a bad idea, right?”

            “Jamie… you stud… what kind of bizarro moves are you pulling, dude? That sounds awesome, man.”

            “So, I didn’t make myself look like a total creep?”

            “…Incredible,” Jason sighs into the phone, clearly not listening to Jamie anymore, “This guy. Oh, dude. Oh, man.”

            “Jason?” Jamie sees that he’s clearly not coming back from this and he’s probably been on the phone too long now, so he hangs up, stands up and decides to get on with his day. His heart is still beating real fast though, no matter what Jamie wants.

           

 

_Jason: fucking stud!!!!!!!_

_Jamie: thanks ?_

_Jason: im never getting over this btw. also i told jordie._

            Jamie’s phone is buzzing a lot, and a tiny part of him thinks it could be Romeo, but it’s been half an hour since The Event happened and he’s trying to be realistic. Jason and Jordie are probably pissing themselves laughing.

            He finds Antoine in the break room and they’re buddies now, right? Jamie sits down beside him at the little table they have and stares at his hands for a second, before gathering up the courage to say something.

            “Can I ask you something?”

            “Yeah. Go ahead,” Antoine says, and he’s looking at him a little strangely but it’s nothing Jamie hasn’t faced before, so he continues.

            “Maybe I’d better start from the beginning,” Jamie mumbles, which Antoine meets with an even more confused expression, so he carries on in a stronger voice, “So I met this guy at a party, right? And I never got his name or anything. And he comes in today to buy a coffee, so I decided to put my name on the cup. And my number. And now I’m freaking out a little. Was that dumb? Oh my God, please don’t tell Julie,” Jamie realises he’s rambling and stops himself.

            “I thought you were going to ask me about, uh, switching shifts or something,” Antoine laughs. Jamie laughs too, and it’s comforting (more than he thought it would be).

            “I’m sorry. Oh fuck, did I make this weird?”

            “No, no, I just… don’t know how to react at first. Um. I mean you already did it so, that’s it, you know? It’s cool how you made the first move. I think that is something to be, uh, admired,” he says. And Jamie doesn’t know if it’s the accent or what, but he is starting to feel a bit better.

            “Cool, man. Thanks a lot. Really.”

 

 

            He checks his phone again _after_ he’s finished at work, because he’s trying to exhibit at least some degree of self-control and professionalism. All he has are hoards of texts from Jordie and Jason. In the separate individual chats and their group chat.

 

 

            Jamie walks home, and it rains. The kind of misty rain that gets him wet without him even realising. His hair drips, and his trousers are soaked through, leaving his thighs chilly and damp. His music is playing too loud. There’s barely anyone out on the streets, actually, and cars spray water everywhere. He’s dodging them the best he can, but he can’t escape all of it.

            He takes a long, hot shower when he gets back, because he can’t afford to get ill right now (he can’t afford very much in general, really). Life isn’t so bad when he bathes, once he’s clean. There’s nothing quite like washing up to clear the head. It’s so steamy in the showers; he can hardly see his feet on the tile, as hard as he looks.

            He lets his mind wander and go over the events of the day, almost like dreaming. There’s a lot to be said about everything that happened, but he lets it all go, very much un-thought-about. He has some assignments to do, which sucks. He’s all soapy and bubbles are lathered all over his skin. He watches it slip down into the drain as the water pours down from above his head, beads of water dripping from his eyelashes and down his nose and chin. He wants to stand there forever. His whole thought process is very conflicting. He wants a lot of things.

            The rain outside only gets heavier throughout the night. He hears it patter on his window as he lies in bed. He can hardly sleep, it’s like he can feel raindrops all over his skin. It’s like taps of fingertips ghosting over his arms. It’s the stream of thoughts in his brain, manifesting as prickling sensations on his skin, and he can’t switch it off. His mind’s eye is the monochrome static of a broken TV, and the rain outside is the white noise.

            Three guesses what he’s thinking about.

 

 

            He never remembers being this melodramatic about something in his life. He’s had crushes before. There were the girls he thought about when he practiced kissing on his hand, and the boys he thought about when he couldn’t fall asleep at night.

 

 

            He sleeps like a log once he finally exhausts himself. And when he wakes up, he acts like he doesn’t even care about checking the notifications on his phone, even though he’s only pretending to himself. He scrolls indifferently (maybe a little indignantly). It doesn’t mean anything. It would probably be weird if Romeo _had_ texted.

            This is the worst thing in the world, Jamie decides. Waiting drives him crazy. The uncertainty of it all, and the fact that he doesn’t even know if there’s even something to be waiting for. It just feels long and dull, but there’s still enough tension to keep him a little jumpy. He doesn’t have class until the afternoon, so he’ll loiter at Jordie’s place until then. It’s not like those two have much going on.

 

 

            He doesn’t even knock; he just walks in, drops his bag and falls face-first into the couch.

            “Hey, studmuffin,”

            Jamie remembers how this couch was bought at a thrift store and doesn’t remember it ever being well cleaned. He turns his head regretfully and drones out a ‘hi’.

            “Good morning then, I guess,” Jason murmurs, with an eye roll. He’s wearing a terrible green dressing gown and he takes an energetic sip of coffee from some gimmicky mug (which is also from a thrift store, most likely).

            “I was expecting you and Romeo to be riding horseback into a sunset by now,” Jason says.

            “Romeo and Juliet died!” Jordie shouts, voice slightly muted, from another room in the apartment, “both of them! It was tragic!”

            “Then why the _fuck_ are we still using them as the paradigm of true love?” Jason murmurs, setting his mug down on the coffee table. He sits down in an armchair across from Jamie, “Chubbs-“

            “Oh, God! Please, Jason, be a little more modest when you sit,” Jamie groans.

            “We’re all men here,” Jason mumbles as he alters the placement of his dressing gown and his legs, letting out a little sigh, “as I was saying, you’ve still got a decent window of time left. There’s nothing to freak out over.”

            “This is excruciating, man,” Jamie says, his legs hanging over the arm of the couch. What if the guy turns out to be an asshole? He’s spoken about ten words to him. He doesn’t exactly have much to go on. Spontaneity is overrated.

            “Shut the fuck up,” Jordie says, coming out from somewhere with a towel around his hips.

            “No. Let me suffer,”

            “Well, suffer someplace else,”

            Jamie melts further into the sofa and makes a load of noises in protest. He misses being a three-year-old when this kind of petulant behaviour was allowed.

 

 

            He did finally make it off the couch and he’s worried that he has lines in his face from the corduroy. He’s a little late, but he’s powerwalking and should make it in time for class.

            He tries to slip into the auditorium quietly but the door squeaks and, really, nothing is going his way. He slips into a seat near the back and not too many people are looking at him, so he just continues and takes out his notebook and makes himself comfortable. He pretends that he doesn’t care but he can feel that his face has turned bright red.

            His face has returned to an appropriate colour and he’s taken a good half page of notes when he feels vibrations on his thigh. Honestly, he doesn’t have the time for Jason to be annoying right now; the girl next to him is looking at him crossly and alright, he gets it, he’s a mess, okay. He’s fishing his phone out of his pocket, but it’s hard to do when he’s sitting down, and he does his best (however still managing to knock a pen off the desk in front of him).

            And _that_ is an unknown number on the screen.

            He gathers all his stuff in an armful, now he doesn’t really care about much else, because he has to take this damn call. The phone is vibrating still, which just adds to the flustered urgency that Jamie feels. Romeo is calling him and he really doesn’t want to miss this call.

            He pushes the door a little too forcefully open with his shoulder, hears it slam behind him (oops), and he practically drops his things to pick up the call. He clears his throat. 

            “Hello, this is Jamie,”

            “Hey, Jamie, this is Tyler,”

            Tyler? Alright. Tyler. He’d be pleased with anything other than Romeo.

            “From the coffee shop?” Tyler says. Jamie was obviously in his head a little too long and when people are trying to have a conversation, they generally want a reply, shit.

            “Yeah, sorry, I remember you. Uh. How are you?” Jamie says. He has no idea where this is going, and he can feel his palms getting clammy.

            “I’m really good, thanks. You know, this was new. I’ve never seen the coffee cup move before.”

            “Haha. Yeah. Um, it was spur of the moment, I guess,” Jamie wipes his hands on his jeans. His face is heating up and he’s probably a walking and talking tomato right now.

            “It was cool. You really made an impression, man,”

            Is ‘impression’ good or bad? He’ll have to ask Jason later, “Um. Yeah, I guess that’s what I was going for.”

            “So, are we going for coffee or had you planned something else?”

            Jamie really hadn’t thought that far, and, boy, was this guy direct.

            “Coffee,” he blurts out, because his brain can’t come up with anything else in that moment, “Coffee would be great.”

            “Cool. Are you free now?”

            “Absolutely,” he lies, because this is more important than class.

            “Would it be weird to go to the place you work at? Do you wanna go some other place?”

            “Uh, maybe it’s easier just to meet there. Where I work, I mean.” Jamie scrunches his eyes in embarrassment.

            “I’ll see you there in fifteen minutes, then?”

            “Yep! See you,”

            “Bye,” Tyler laughs, and Jamie hears it get cut off by the phone call.

            Well, it wasn’t horrific. He stands there, only a few steps away from the doors of the auditorium, a little stunned. Tyler. Jamie almost cannot believe this cool, calm and collected phone conversation he had was with the same guy he saw drunkenly climb of out a pile of leaves less than a week ago. This smooth-talking guy was so bad at beer pong that he got himself thrown into a backyard.

            He quickly calls Jason.

            “Hey, Jamie,”

            “I’m meeting Romeo in fifteen minutes. His real name is Tyler and I’m losing my shit.”

            “Alright, man. Take it easy. You’ll be great. Good news though, right?”

            “Also, what does ‘you made an impression’ mean?”

            Jason pauses. “He said that?”

            “Yeah, he did,”

            “Well. He’s going on a date with you, right? It can’t be that bad.”

            “Alright, thanks Jason, bye,” Jamie mumbles. Maybe ‘impression’ isn’t that good, but a date is.

            Jamie decides he doesn’t like the word ‘date’ because it’s scary, so he chooses to call it a meeting. He now has thirteen minutes to get to his meeting and he thinks he has enough time. He’s walking fast and he hopes to God he won't start sweating.

            He rounds the corner to the right street and he’s through the door with a jingle of the bell.

            “Hey, Julie,” he says, taking off his jacket and scanning the room for Tyler. It’s almost empty. He sees one of the regulars in the back corner.

            “You don’t have a shift today.”

            “I’m meeting somebody.” Jamie replies, checking his phone. He has two minutes to spare.

            “A date? Here?” she’s looking understandably confused.

            “He should be here any second. Do I look okay?” he asks, her opinion is the best he can hope for in absence of a mirror.

            “Handsome. Maybe run a hand through your hair real quick,” she offers, placing her glass and dishtowel down.

            Jamie ruffles his hair, and she beams at him, “there you go. Good luck.”

            Jamie takes a seat, and it’s a little odd sitting in an armchair instead of the break room. He takes a few deep breaths for good measure. He hadn’t really expected their meeting to go like this. He would have preferred to be a little more prepared. Maybe then he could have worn his nice shoes.

            He picks at his fingernails a little bit. He might still be in some degree of shock. Do people make plans this fast? He has no idea what he’s going to say, or what he’s going to do, which might be a bad thing. He also considers leaving. What does he know about this guy anyway? He could just change his phone number. Finding a new job won’t be easy, but he could try.

            The bell jingles. Jamie can’t look behind him to the door, he feels paralysed.

            “Hey! Jamie!” Jamie hears. He sees Tyler (who is smiling broadly in his direction) and, oh God, now it’s happening.

            “Hey,” Jamie stands up and he’s not sure if he’s supposed to go for a hug, or something else. Maybe a handshake? He doesn’t do anything with his arms, because that’s the safest option. He supposes Tyler notices it because he doesn’t go for anything either. He’s probably picked up on Jamie’s awkwardness already. Jamie probably made that particular trait quite clear on the phone.

            They sit down across from each other, each in their own armchair. 

            "Was it, um, a vanilla latte?" 

**Author's Note:**

> constructive criticism + comments are greatly appreciated. i'm not sure if i'll continue writing anymore of this. i hit a bit of a wall with it and. yeah.
> 
> the reciting shakespeare part was on a random prompt list i saw on tumblr. 
> 
> find me on tumblr: sweepcheck.tumblr.com


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